What's being done for sufferers of colonic cancer? Nothing, that's what. If screening and treatment were funded it would have more than the pathetic 20 per cent hit rate of IVF"

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My comment had nothing to do with existing survival rates among sufferers of colonic cancer - that's your misreading of it.

My apologies for equating "hit rate" with "survival rate", and for not recognizing when that referred back to "sufferers of colonic cancer" you weren't really talking about ... sufferers of colonic cancer.

My apologies for equating "hit rate" with "survival rate", and for not recognizing when that referred back to "sufferers of colonic cancer" you weren't really talking about ... sufferers of colonic cancer.

If you read my statement again carefully you'll see that I was referring to possible hit rates for colonic cancer treatments rather than historic ones. The issue always was and remains quite straightforward - inadequate public funding for sufferers of colonic cancer. You lot want to get your priorities right, mate - people are dying while funds are being poured into mainly unsuccessful lifestyle treatments like IVF with all the grotesque consequences that go with it.

If you read my statement again carefully you'll see that I was referring to possible hit rates for colonic cancer treatments rather than historic ones.

I read all 31 words of your statement -- nowhere did the word "possible" appear, nor was it implied. Seriously, if you meant "possible" you should have said so. Or were you being figurative again? It's difficult to tell these days when you keep redefining what you actually write.

I I read all 31 words of your statement -- nowhere did the word "possible" appear, nor was it implied.

I said "If screening and treatment were funded it would have more than the pathetic 20 per cent hit rate of IVF"

"if" clearly means that higher than a 20 per cent hit rate is possible among the target group. As I have pointed out the target group is obviously those who are dying of colonic cancer not those being cured of it. I put figures on that in subsequent posts. The statement remains true - fiunds going into colonic cancer would produce a higher hit rate among the target group than the same funds going into IVF.

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Or were you being figurative again?

Mixtiure as it happens - "nothing being done" was figurative and "more than pathetic 20 per cent hit rate" was literal.

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It's difficult to tell these days when you keep redefining what you actually write.

Just putting you right on your misinterpretation of what I said - that's not re-defining. The idea is to shift the funds going into the pathetic 20 per cent hit rate for IVF over to the 98 per cent hit rate possible, yes, possible, for sufferers of colonic cancer.

"if" clearly means that higher than a 20 per cent hit rate is possible among the target group.

Seriously, if this is the point we've gotten to, we're into a Clintonian dissection of an argument, which is just silly ...

Which also makes this thread pretty meaningless at this point, since once again we've devolved into semantics rather than actual substance. I get that you disapprove of IVF on the grounds of your personal code of ethics, which I respect. The frustrating part is that most of the discussions I have with you hinge on what you write rather than what you claim to mean -- we've gotten to the point of trying to define what you meant by "if", in this case, which is pretty inane ...

Perhaps it's just your style I find frustrating, but it really does seem to me you usually open with a fairly terse statement meant to generate a reaction more than an actual discussion of your position. And that the threads get so involved seem to me more a result of discussion of those simplistic reductions, and others you frequently inject into threads, that apparently require a rather extensive interpretation on the part of the reader, than of a give-and-take of the actual issue involved.

Again, this may just be a conflict between your style of online conversation and mine, but I don't seem to be the only one here who "misinterprets" what you write on a fairly consistent basis.

I was referring to possible hit rates for colonic cancer treatments rather than historic ones

Perhaps we could have a sign for when you mean "possible" (read may or man not happen or able to happen-although not certain to happen), "rather than historic" (read notable/significant in history or factual past events).

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